This overview synthesises key issues and emerging options in
the area of ICT policy and regulation as they affect access and
affordability for poor people and communities.

It looks at both policy and regulation, though the two are not always
easy separated. In general, policy provides the broad thrust of what is
to be achieved, and regulation creates the mechanisms to achieve it.
This is usually done with the oversight of a government ministry or an
independent regulator. Some policies are detailed and prescriptive,
leaving regulation little room for manoeuvre; others are open, even
vague, with ample scope for innovation at regulation level. Effective
outcomes require a combination of good policy and good regulation, the
one reinforcing the other.

Encouraging a general sectoral environment conducive to
affordable and accessible ICTs overall that ultimately benefits all
sections, poor as well as rich.

Influencing and cooperating/coordinating with other policy
areas in ways that will promote a focus on pro-poor actions (e.g., in
public service provision, enterprise development and rural development).

2.
Emerging issues and trends in pro-poor ICT policy and regulation

Issues and trends in policy and
regulation are outlined below, beginning with those most directly
associated with pro-poor potential.

Universal access policies

The goal of universal access, often set down as precise
targets in policy and regulation, includes the provision of affordable
telephony and – now almost always – internet.[1]

Achieving universal access is an objective of virtually all
telecommunication regimes, monopoly or otherwise. This comes from the
recognition that telephony and increasingly the internet are regarded
as basic services to which everyone is entitled.

The “standard” approach to universal access policy, as recommended by
the European Union and World Bank, includes the establishment of a
universal access fund (UAF), to be administered by an independent
regulator and financed by the main operators in the sector. This is
often in combination with other measures designed to roll out access to
areas that are underserved by markets. There are many ways of
administering UAFs.
[2]

These include management by government ministries; by
purpose-built, even multi-stakeholder, trustee funds; or by dedicated
vehicles separate from a regulator. Financing may come directly from
government, from spectrum auctions, or from postal, media and courier
services.

From the mid-1990s, especially in Latin America, the principle
UAF mechanism deployed to achieve universal access has been the
lowest-subsidy auction. Through this mechanism, licences to extend
services into underserved rural areas are awarded to those seeking the
lowest subsidy in a competitive bid. This led in a number of cases to
rapid commercial viability of the new services and to significant
growth in access. Among the success factors was the selection of target
areas using a bottom-up approach. In Chile, for instance, local
authorities, community organisations, and telecom companies together
submitted lists that were then short-listed by regional authorities.
[3]

However, the extent to which “smart subsidies” can achieve
rapid commercial viability for network providers in rural areas falls
as remaining underserved areas become progressively poorer and more
remote. The positive experience in Latin America was to some degree the
result of early underestimation of the demand and willingness to pay
for telephony, even among poor people. There is also evidence that
ongoing supporting policies, after the initial subsidy, are needed to
achieve sustainability, such as asymmetrical interconnection charges[4]
(implemented in Chile, Colombia and Uganda, for example) and continuing
firm regulation against anti-competitive behaviour by dominant
operators.
[5]

The use of UAFs to provide internet access has in most cases
proved more commercially challenging, as the service lacks the same
degree of pent-up demand and potential income is far less. However,
internet provision is now an accepted component of universal access and
has spread in some places to including access in schools, NGOs, health
centres and other social services.

Recent approaches to universal access are going further. They
are, for instance, funding broadband services, experimenting in
technology-neutral approaches (eliminating restrictions on technology,
such as VoIP, that can be used), and encouraging experimentation in
low-cost delivery platforms such as broadband wireless access networks.
For instance:

The government of India reportedly has ambitious plans to
use the UAF to roll out free broadband connectivity at a speed of 2 MB
per second across the country by 2009, with the goal of boosting
economic activity in the country.[6]
It can afford to do so as the country collects 5% of all operators’
revenue, among the highest in the world.

Regulatory permission to use VoIP (voice over internet
protocol) in the 30,000 or so cabinas públicas telecentres in Peru has
been a contributory factor in their success, with about one third of
all clients using the service.[7]

The municipal government of Knysna in South Africa, a
coastal town of 50,000, constructed a Wi-Fi-based network, in
partnership with a Wi-Fi internet service provider, that offers voice
and data for free on several hundred hotspots.[8]

There is also movement towards making more unlicensed spectrum
available. Dedicated licences are now also available in many countries
for small-scale local telecom companies to provide the full range of
services.

Some continue to argue that liberalisation will, given sufficient time,
offer the complete solution to universal access. Exponential growth in
mobile phone access across most developing countries adopting a
pro-market approach, and even some that did not, offered support to
this view. Mobile growth remains strongest in Africa – an annual 39%
for the two years to the end of 2007 – and Asia also saw a healthy 28%
annual growth during the same period.
[9]

Some of the value-added services becoming available on
mobiles, such as financial services (“m-banking” or “m-money”)
including remittance payments of direct relevance to poor communities
and families (successful examples are found in Kenya – almost two
million users – Tanzania, South Africa and the Philippines), have also
been facilitated, if not actually driven, by policy and regulatory
actions.[10]

Yet large access gaps remain, especially in poorer, sparsely
populated areas. Mobile telephony, despite growing data functionality
and applications, still offers limited internet access, usually at
tariffs beyond the reach of the poor. The affordability of mobile
telephony has not been adequately addressed and its use remains beyond
the reach of many poor people even where network access is available.
Despite services being available on mobile phones, universal access,
some would argue, must in key respects go beyond the market approach to
support a public good approach to ICTs.[11]

Such an approach would argue for widespread affordable
internet and ICTs based on the idea that the public good is maximised
and most efficiently achieved only if virtually everyone is connected.

A pro-poor approach

A key challenge with universal access policies and regulation
is to ensure that they can successfully target poor people and poor
communities and are not just benefiting the wealthier sections of what
are, overall, relatively poor communities (i.e., that it is not only
the better off who can actually afford to utilise the services). From
this perspective, a pro-poor approach may be viewed as a convergence
between ICT policy and development policy, where the goal is not simply
to ensure access to ICTs, or even to render them affordable to the
poor, but also to build on the capacity of ICTs to empower poor people
and poor communities.[12]

The manner in which poverty is addressed can vary. South
Africa, from the earliest days, pioneered telecentres as a means to
achieve universal and affordable access for telephony and internet use
by the poor, often offering a range of other services. Success was
mixed,[13]
but telecentre programmes have become a part of universal access policy
in many other countries.

Some initiatives build in features targeted at poverty. In
India, the Kerala state’s Akshaya project, launched in 2002,[14]
started as a pilot and is now state wide. It aims to build a network of
rural community “kiosks” in every village. What is notable in the
approach is that the state offers subsidised broadband to social
entrepreneurs to set up these centres. The pro-poor mandate derives
from a legally sanctioned role of the village elected bodies
(panchayats) in governing the kiosks, including some influence in
setting different tariffs according to need, as well as a requirement
that one member of every family in the village is given ICT training.

Other examples following similar principles of community
participation and socialised benefits can be found in telephony
cooperatives in Argentina and Poland, and the unusual case of a
community-owned irrigation board in Peru setting up and running a Wi-Fi
based telephony and internet service.[15] Such community-driven
networks are intended to build capacity within the community in terms
of managing an enterprise, to retain the profits within the community,
and to redirect surpluses towards development activities.[16]

A detailed discussion on various government-driven,
public/private sector and community-based entrepreneurial models can be
seen in the Implementing Projects at the Community Level module of this
toolkit.

Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda are among countries that have opened
regulatory spaces in national policy for these kinds of initiatives.
Such small-scale local initiatives may not be inherently pro-poor in
nature, but policy and regulatory measures can be taken to encourage
and enable them in poor areas, including the participation of poor
communities themselves. For instance:

UAFs can be used as a source of venture capital, filling
the gap between micro-credit and bank loans and offering finance to
social entrepreneurs and cooperatives.[17]

Asymmetrical access charges can be tailored to benefit not
just rural but poor communities; assistance can be given in developing
appropriate legal structures.

A pro-poor approach focuses on the needs of the poor, and
these extend beyond ICT access and affordability. Policy measures can
help deliver appropriate content and services to address these wider
needs. Many poor rural communities are beyond the effective reach of
social and public services, and ICTs can facilitate remote delivery,
reducing delivery costs in the long term. For example, the National
e-Governance Plan in India includes a well-funded programme, already
launched, to establish up to 100,000 Common Services Centres (CSCs) in
rural areas, seen as front-end delivery platforms for government,
private and social services.[19]

Small-scale village entrepreneurs and NGOs are contracted to
offer the services and establish the centres, charging agreed tariffs.
The idea is that subsidies for the provision of key government services
will underpin the viability of the centres, enabling them to offer a
wider range of services at affordable charges. If this were more firmly
linked into a community empowerment approach, the impact could be even
greater.[20]

Affordable access to high-speed internet brings further policy
possibilities, both because it allows for the simultaneous provision of
a variety of different services and because it supports high-speed
broadband services. Areas such as agricultural extension, basic
literacy and numeracy, education, disease prevention, hygiene and small
business development can all be supported through ICTs, driven by
cooperation across different policy domains. The health sector, in
particular, can benefit from broadband access, with high-quality video
and data transmission linking community health centres with centralised
and specialised diagnostic centres. Early diagnosis is often the key to
local and effective treatment, and yields major savings both for people
and for the health service. Existing universal access policy moves to
link health centres and schools to the internet would, with the
availability of broadband, come significantly closer to realising such
possibilities.

ICT strategies

A pro-poor policy convergence between universal access and development
policy may also in principle be reinforced through the adoption in
numerous countries, most still in the process of implementation, of
national strategies variously titled ICT strategies, ICT4D strategies
or e-strategies.
[21]
These give shape and direction to the body of policies and provide a
coherent framework for implementation, premised on the idea that the
benefits of ICTs are to be achieved horizontally across many sectors
and generally encompassing a range of government ministries,
institutions and other actors.
[22]

The development of such plans was strongly encouraged from the
late 1990s by regional and global entities such as the United Nations
Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), and the World Summit on the Information Society, and
by donors at national level. Most include e-governance measures,
sectoral actions in health and education, training and capacity
building, support for small and micro businesses, as well as
infrastructure and service extension, each of which may contain
pro-poor measures.

The impact of such initiatives on poor people is difficult to judge as
there have been no systematic evaluations. Few ICT strategies were
backed up with funding; a number comprise little more than a collated
set of project ideas to be brought before various donors and sectoral
ministries. Some fail to prioritise, and indeed a few countries have
produced overlapping ICT plans and strategies, each funded by a
different donor. Rwanda's NICI 2010 Plan (extended to 2020) is amongst
the most ambitious and explicitly places ICTs at the centre of its
overall development plan, and therefore attracts a considerable
proportion of development funding. India's National e-Governance Plan,
mentioned above, is another example.

However, the availability of this scale of funding to
implement ICT and e-government strategies is the exception, not the
rule; nor was it always the intention. The possibility of reaping
indirect benefits was also part of the rationale for such strategies. A
goal was to nurture a wider multi-level strategic ICT dialogue between
traditional telecommunication ministries and IT institutions, and
sectoral ministries in industries, health, education, rural development
and so forth; and to involve as much as possible wider stakeholders.
Efforts directed at such mainstreaming of ICTs at the policy level can
claim some success in a number of countries such as Mozambique.

If the trend now appears to be away from overarching strategies towards
sectoral-level policy on ICTs – e-governance, e-health, e-education,
etc. – this may reflect a measure of success. Thus strategies that
maintained a top-down approach have made little progress, while those
that are based on an organic, incremental approach “with a focus on
building blocks such as national educational capacity, policy and
regulation, infrastructure, content and public sector delivery”
[23]
have met with more success.

Building out high-speed networks into poor areas

Many policies apart from those explicitly geared towards
achieving universal access and poverty alleviation influence affordable
access to ICTs.The lack of optical fibre backbone networks in many
countries acts as a bandwidth bottleneck, driving prices beyond the
reach especially of poor people and limiting the functionality of the
services available. Remote delivery of educational, health and other
content-driven services is heavy on bandwidth. Universal access
policies aimed at empowerment through supporting, for instance, the
emergence of community-driven networks and low-cost broadband wireless
access systems also require significant bandwidth. Satellite access,
the only option in many poor and rural areas, is very costly, has high
latency (i.e., time delay between sender and receiver) and is
unreliable in certain weather conditions. Ubiquitous low-cost,
reliable, high-speed networks open up opportunities for everyone, but
especially for innovative approaches to pro-poor ICT solutions. The
paucity of national backbone fibre is particularly evident in Africa,
but also affects poorer Asian countries.

The type and extent of liberalisation, overlaid onto existing
rigid yet frail telecommunications institutions and fixed-line
operators, resulted in shortcomings in the nature of the ICT regimes
and services that emerged. For example, the fixed-line network, far
from achieving the expected growth, shrank in some countries. This was
the result of strategic short-sightedness, policy and institutional
hurdles, and unavoidably high initial fixed costs. In much of
sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, liberalisation reinforced or
encouraged vertically integrated operators with end-to-end networks.
Although backbone networks are extensive, the majority comprise
microwave and satellite owned by mobile operators designed primarily
for voice traffic. Furthermore, some governments restrict the types of
technologies that can be deployed, and prohibit operators from selling
on excess bandwidth capacity. As a result, the prospects for universal
broadband are on hold in many developing countries. People in
low-income countries, representing 38% of the world’s population,
currently make up only 1% of the world’s fixed broadband subscribers.[25]

Where the backbone issues have been partially addressed, for
instance in Kenya and Nigeria, bandwidth has been freed up and new
backbone providers attracted, expanding capacity and reducing prices.
In Kenya, the lifting of restrictions on VoIP in 2004 resulted in a
fall of almost 80% in the cost of international calls;[26] and
India expects to see national long-distance call tariffs halved and a
fifth off international calls.
[27]

This will benefit many poor people deriving economic and
social benefits from contacting relatives and friends abroad. However,
such developments tend to be confined to main urbanised centres, where
fibre already exists and the best market opportunities arise. Market
incentives alone, even with supportive regulation, are unlikely to
deliver the investment needed for broadband access in more rural areas.

The policy and regulatory question is how to get high-speed backbone
into rural areas and how to ensure it addresses the needs of the poor.
Here additional action is needed, and some have been attempted.
[28]

A least-cost subsidy competition can be held, including
fixed price and quality of service terms, which can also include
public/private partnerships, examples of which can be found in France
and Singapore.

The private sector can be given other incentives to build a
network, such as concessions on contributions to a universal access
fund in the case of Brazil.

A consortium can be formed, by public and/or private
actors, to build and operate a subsidised backbone network, selling
services on a cost-oriented basis with full transparency; the Eastern
Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) cable in is an example of this.

A crucial factor in the success of these is the implementation
of an “open access” approach whereby all players (including at local
level) can connect into a technology-neutral environment, at cost-based
non-discriminatory charges with the subsidy ensuring they are
affordable.

Maintaining strong regulatory or public control over service price and
quality and applying positive discriminatory measures are critical to
ensure that benefits reach poor communities. This suggests that the
third model above might be most effective, with a strong role for
public interests. The consortium could comprise a number of public
entities active in the area with communication needs, such as
educational and health institutions. Indeed the government and public
services could become an “anchor tenant”, underpinning viability by
guaranteed purchase of a significant proportion of available bandwidth
in the context of the implementation of wider e-governance strategies.

India, on the other hand, offers an example of a nationally
owned incumbent carrier, BSNL, recently building a modern and extensive
rural fibre network. According to one Ministry of IT official, every
village in India is within 25 kilometres of an optical fibre
cable.[29]

BSNL owns the great majority of the backbone and is pursuing
an ambitious policy of laying fibre to every exchange in the country,
giving extensive rural coverage (though currently it is hugely
underutilised). At the same time, it is obliged to sell backbone leased
lines on a regulated basis – though not perhaps as much as it might.
[30]

This reinforces that a key factor in success is firm
regulation of BSNL regarding cost-based prices and quality of service.

Shared infrastructure

An additional policy dimension can be added, depending on the
local conditions, to encourage, enable or even mandate the sharing of
components of national infrastructure. Sharing can be of “passive”
(physical) infrastructure, or of “active” (fibre or other medium)
infrastructure.[31]

A key goal in relation to rural access is to reduce the
capital cost, and sometimes the current cost, of both passive and
active components, thereby enabling network extension beyond where it
is otherwise commercially feasible.

In new-build situations, the legal and financial costs of
obtaining common rights of way can be shared between communication,
electricity, railways, highways and other infrastructure suppliers.
Poles, ducts and power supplies can also be used for multiple purposes.
As early as 1999, Brazil's three regulatory agencies, for telecoms,
electricity and oil, decided to specify a common regulatory framework
for sharing infrastructure. In Cameroon and Nigeria, several utilities
have been put under the telecoms regulator, facilitating measures
ranging from mandatory sharing of passive infrastructure to financial
incentives and guidelines. The newly created regulator in Lebanon has
similarly declared its intention to promote passive infrastructure
sharing in areas where multiple operators cannot viably build
infrastructure and where environmental or social concerns are
particularly important.
[32]

Network sharing between mobile phone operators of masts,
power, physical space and cabling is encouraged in India and elsewhere,[33] and
the Indian regulator policy recommendations include financial
incentives such as tax exemptions and licence subventions.
[34]

There are also several approaches to sharing active
infrastructure, usually fibre capacity, depending on the circumstances.
Some countries have regulated for the wholesale or retail use of fibre
owned by electricity and railway companies, or the multiple use of
fibre along existing and new electricity (Ecuador, El Salvador, Kenya,
Tanzania) and train (Ghana) network lines. A transnational example is
the Cameroon-Chad oil pipeline, where twelve of the eighteen fibre
cables installed will be available for use by telecoms operators,
traversing many rural areas.
[35]

There is, however, some resistance to sharing common
infrastructure. Concerns include that commercially sensitive knowledge
will become available to competitors in the case of mobile operators
sharing elements of active infrastructure; or that forced sharing will
facilitate direct competition in a core area of business. But the
incentive of considerable gains has led to solutions being found around
these issues. In Tanzania, for instance, a neutral partner carrier in
the form of an equipment vendor manages shared active infrastructure
for several operators in what might otherwise be marginal rural areas,
thereby avoiding the issue of commercially sensitive information.
[36]

Open standards, open hardware, open source, open spectrum

Open standards are about enabling all communication
technologies – and people – to interact with each other by recognising
and adopting common standards. Open hardware means the public
availability of technical specifications of ICT equipment. Open source
is the term for software that makes its “source code” freely available
to all, thus allowing programmes to be tailored to local needs and
giving birth to a global community of software engineers helping each
other out; free and open source software (FOSS) is the wider movement
that also emphasises the availability of software for free. Open
spectrum is essentially making wireless bandwidth available without the
need for a licence.[37]

Together they can facilitate a pro-development approach and,
particularly in a local context, pro-poor aspects can emerge. Open
standards can help to avoid vendor “lock-in” where customers are
obliged to stick with the same equipment, ensuring that all equipment
can interconnect. This allows for greater customer choice, including
the choice of local equipment. Open hardware facilitates small-scale
manufacture and assembling of hardware locally, to suit local
conditions and needs and generate employment. A major policy lever in
relation to open standards and open hardware is government procurement
policy for government services.

Open source not only saves money, but in the right circumstances can
help build up local software skills. The success of Wi-Fi at the local
level, where it has been deployed by poor communities to build their
own networks, can in part be attributed to the emergence of a Wi-Fi
open source community enabling new business models to emerge.
[38]

Open spectrum policies have been at the root of the Wi-Fi
revolution, greatly simplifying the bureaucratic barriers involved in
legally accessing spectrum and eliminating licence fees. The potential
and actual benefits of FOSS for development in general have been widely
documented,
[39] though the subject will undoubtedly remain hotly contested given
the power, resources and massive user platform of commercial software
companies, notably Microsoft. Quite a number of countries and regions
are implementing policies to support FOSS, as part of a development
approach or sometimes integrated within ICT strategies, from Brazil and
Venezuela to the Indian state of Kerala. The last is in the process of
setting up an International Centre for Free and Open Source Software
with wide-ranging functions to support and implement FOSS.
[40]

Ecuador joined the list in May 2008, when the president issued
a decree that establishes, with few exceptions, the mandatory use of
FOSS in the public administration and institutions, and pilots are
underway in two ministries. The case is interesting as these measures
anticipated the proposed new constitution, finally adopted in October
2008, which includes an explicit commitment to the right to universal
access to ICTs.

Broadcasting policy and regulation

Radio and television are sometimes thought of as technologies
of the past. Yet they continue to evolve and change and exert major
influence, sometimes in new areas. They can be technologically
innovative, and are increasingly intertwined with their
telecommunication and internet-based cousins. Apart from their economic
role, the fact that most countries retain relatively strict regulation
– and sometimes direct government control – in an era of deregulation
is testimony to how important these media are in political and cultural
spheres. Broadcasting globally is by far the dominant means by which
people receive information from outside[41] and, most importantly, this
is especially true in poor and remote communities.

Broadcasting, if properly regulated, has the potential to give
voice to poor communities, opening a door to wider influence in
society's structures and institutions. Yet broadcasting is too often
neglected in current ICT policies and strategies, and its pro-poor
potential lies largely dormant.

The growth in the past decade in community radio– the cheapest and most
accessible of all ICTs – is probably the most striking feature of the
sector. Every continent has been affected. In Africa, from Mali to
Cameroon, Senegal to the Democratic Republic of Congo, through Togo,
Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Niger and Chad, all have witnessed
an explosion of community radio stations to the extent that their
numbers now run into the thousands. Latin America has a history of
community radio dating back over half a century, in the beginning
outside the law, but in recent years Bolivia, Colombia, Peru,
Venezuela, Mexico and Argentina, amongst others, have developed policy
and are regulating the sector . The experience in Asia is more recent,
but Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand, India and Indonesia now give out radio
licences to communities.

However, the policy and regulatory processes that have
accompanied this flowering of stations is highly uneven, and whether
the future will live up to its undoubted pro-poor potential is
uncertain.

Nepal is a case in point, illustrating some of the risks. Community
stations played a key role in the restoration of democracy to Nepal
and, partly in reward, the new government “fast-tracked” applicants for
new licences. Dozens were granted within weeks, with more applicants
joining the queue all the time. Yet the licence does not distinguish
between commercial and community stations and both have to pay a 4% tax
on income and a significant annual broadcasting levy. There are also
few regulatory protections to ensure that the public interest is kept
to the fore. In this circumstance, commercial stations are
consolidating their base and crowding out the community stations; and
politicians and political parties can manipulate channels for
propaganda.
[42]

Television is also growing as a medium in poor communities.
However, community television, because of the higher costs and wider
set of skills required, has had little impact so far, with the possible
exception of a couple of Latin American countries. But there has been a
major shift in policy and regulation in the last decade. A pronounced
decline in direct government control of broadcasting is evident,
including television, especially in Africa and to a lesser extent in
Latin America and parts of Asia.[43]

Taking its place, however, is the emergence of sometimes
unregulated commercial television, often tacitly supporting the
government and intent on maximising profits. At the same time, the
publicly held aspiration of many of these governments is quite the
reverse: to promote public interest television.

The creation of a policy and regulatory environment in broadcasting
that focuses above all else on the public interest has the potential of
being a central plank of a wider pro-poor agenda. The challenges are
significant:

The temptation for governments to influence broadcasting
directly – or indirectly through implicit or explicit collusion with
commercial or other sectional interests – is strong.

Ensuring adequate funding and independence of sources for
public service media is difficult, especially in poor economies.

Creating the conditions for a viable community media sector
remains a challenge.

The challenge for regulatory bodies

In 1995, just 43 countries had established national regulatory
authorities for telecommunications. By the year 2000 this figure had
risen to 106, and in 2008 it stood at 149.[44]

However, even with enlightened and innovative policy and
regulation on the statutes, effective regulatory implementation
confronts a number of serious challenges. Perhaps chief among these are
the limitations in capacity in regulatory bodies, many of them recently
established in a radically altered policy environment. Not only must
new skills be found and institutionally embedded, but they often
quickly confront highly resourced private sector operators with decades
of experience in thwarting the best efforts of regulators. Asymmetries
of information – for instance, around pricing – between the regulator
and regulated are difficult to overcome in the best of circumstances,[45] and
regulatory “capture” is common. Gaining independence and credibility
involves a complex interaction, and must be earned over time by the
actions of the regulator and the reactions of the government, the
incumbent and the courts.
[46]

One trend in this regard is also worthy of mention: the
emergence and expanding roles of regional associations of regulatory
bodies. Examples include the Communications Regulators’ Association of
Southern Africa (CRASA) in Southern Africa and Regulatel in Latin
America. In other cases, cooperation takes place under wider regional
political alliances, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Their agenda initially includes formulating regional policies, research
and sharing of experiences and capacity. ECOWAS in 2007 adopted an
agreement that covers ICT policy, the legal regime, interconnection,
numbering, spectrum management and universal access.

3.
Strategic policy and regulatory options

The experience and trends outlined offer a number of policy
and regulatory options with the potential to alleviate poverty and
contribute to empowerment, some more tested than others.

1.Extending network and service access more deeply into poorer and more
remote areas may be possible through a range of additions and
variations on the basic lowest-subsidy auction model:

a)
Allowing the use of technology-neutral solutions and
supporting a degree of experimentation in low-cost technologies
suitable for dispersed
populations and remote and difficult terrain – even where
these are prohibited nationally – can reduce costs, in some cases
dramatically.
b) Making unlicensed spectrum available
in the appropriate GHz bands.
c) Sustainability
and/or affordability can be enhanced through allowing asymmetrical
interconnection charges, even beyond that justified by cost
differences, as an ongoing subsidy to the poorer
community.

2.UAFs and policy can also be deployed to support wider
development goals, through measures to promote employment creation and
capacity building:

a) Licensing and supporting small-scale
local and cooperative enterprises offering a range of services
including telephony, internet and others can generate local employment
and enhance skills.

a) UAFs may be used to
provide access to credit, equity capital or grants to micro-enterprise
retail phone providers along the Grameen phone model, or more
ambitiously to licensed local cooperative enterprises as above.
b) Where available, subsidised bandwidth
is an option as a support for community social enterprises.
c) Support for both internet access and
content development could be given, in the areas of education, health,
NGOs/CBOs and development activities, working in close collaboration
with community interests.
d) The UAF could support the setting up
of community radio stations: a community radio channel can be built and
equipped for less than the cost of a single tower of a single mobile
telephone network,[47]
and priority could be given to pro-poor communities in licensing.
Given the trend towards including wide-ranging actions under universal
service policy and regulation, it has been credibly suggested that the
concept of the UAF should be superseded altogether with that of the
Universal Communication Fund.[48]
Such a fund would be given greater flexibility in terms of the forms
and goals of funding, adopting a “bottom-up” approach to supporting
community and local enterprise in poor areas, and in moving some
services from universal access to universal service. Such a broader
role would, in most countries, quickly run up against the capacity
limitations of policy makers and regulators, but may be ripe for
consideration in some situations.

3.The limited availability of broadband backbone, especially
fibre, in rural areas can be addressed through a number of regulatory
measures, depending on the circumstances:

a) Regulating to
oblige operators to share or sell spare backbone capacity may be an
option, including for instance mobile backhaul.

b) Regulating to
promote and facilitate passive and active infrastructure and facilities
sharing, such as rights of way, pilots and masts and pipelines, as well
as fibre and wireless facilities.
c) Introducing “open-access” regulation
of existing and new fibre, and opening the market for a diversity of
small, medium and large value-added services.
d) Offering policy support, depending on
the circumstances, for the creation of public policy-driven consortia
to build fibre, including public investment.

4.E-governance and ICT strategies could be coordinated more
closely with both development and universal access policies. The use of
ICTs to provide e-government services in remote areas can generate
demand for bandwidth that can be aggregated with other local users to
bring down costs. These services can be coordinated with support for
community cooperative ICT-based enterprises.

5.Open standards, open hardware, open source and open spectrum are each
in their own way, and in various combinations, capable of reducing
costs, supporting capacity building, and helping to tailor service
provision to the needs of poor communities. Policy can play a
significant role in encouraging these approaches, for instance through
procurement and guidelines, and in more active policy decision to
favour their implementation.

6.Broadcasting, both radio and television, can enable poor and
marginalised communities to have a voice in the public sphere and gain
influence on policy more widely if policy and regulation are
specifically designed and implemented towards that end. Evidence
suggests that an appropriate balance between commercial, community and
public service broadcasting can achieve this. Such an approach covers a
vast area of law, regulation and policy. Movement towards such a system
must ultimately help to address issues of poverty and exclusion,
particularly through the community sector.

Increasing the take of the universal access fund through, for instance,
raising the percentage contribution should, if the money is spent
wisely, ultimately benefit the poor, although care must be taken not to
undermine mainstream ICT activities. Broadening the scope of those
contributing might be possible, for instance to include courier,
broadcasting and other communication-related sectors, where these are
stable and profitable.

However, lack of funding is not always the issue and there are
cases in which finding useful ways to dispose of funds collected is the
greater challenge, bringing back up the issue of capacity. Fundamental
to building capacity in many cases is the need for firm government
support and determination that the regulator will become independent,
capable and authoritative.

4. Case
Studies

Three case studies have been provided for this module as well
as a list of additional resource material. The policy and regulation
case studies are outlined below:

Project

Project Description

Highlights

Providing Universal Access: FITEL, Peru

This programme provides mechanisms for minimising the
subsidy required for commercial telecoms companies to extend the
network into non-commercial areas by awarding the contract to the
bidder seeking the lowest subsidy

FITEL in Peru offers an early and successful example of
a universal access fund adopting an innovative approach to achieving
access in rural areas, now widely replicated: the lowest-subsidy
auction. Despite shortcomings, this pioneering programme brought
various social benefits, and activities have since expanded from public
telephony to include internet access.

Rural Broadband Backbone: A case study of different
approaches and potential

A look at different approaches to extending fibre
backbone into rural areas

This case study lists various options for the provision
of rural broadband backbone, from direct investment by a
government-owned operator (as in India), to the provision of “open
access” fibre backbone through a public/private consortium (as proposed
in parts of Africa), to mechanisms that encourage infrastructure
sharing and build complementary infrastructure.

Digital Inclusion Policies: Some lessons from India

A review of digital inclusion policy in India,
particularly the Common Services Centres (CSC) scheme of the National
e-Governance Plan

This case study looks at a range of digital inclusion
initiatives in India. It includes an analysis of the challenges faced
by the CSC scheme in ensuring the delivery of development services in a
socially inclusive manner using the ICT-based rural infrastructure it
is building.

There are case studies in other modules of this toolkit which
are relevant to policy and regulation:

Ó Siochrú, Seán “Empowering Communities through ICT Cooperative
Enterprises: The Case of India”. In The Political Economy of the
Information Society: A Southern View edited by Parminder Jeet Singh,
Anita Gurumurthy and Mridula Swamy. Bangalore: IT for Change, 2008
itforchange.net/media/ISSS/Political_Economy_of_IS.pdf